


Ain't it Good to Be Alive?

by sirendean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hell, Season/Series 04, Self-Harm, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirendean/pseuds/sirendean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean rakes his hand over his face, smearing it with blood. He smells the iron and familiarity washes over him, and his mouth twitches into a weak smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't it Good to Be Alive?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Angie" by The Rolling Stones. Unbeta'd so this is probably a mess.

_This is just another test_ , Dean thinks as he wakes up in a new kind of darkness.

It threatens to swallow him whole, caging him in a way that’s become so mundane over the years. Dean wants to let it suffocate him and maybe reach some sort of finality, but that won’t happen. He’ll just be brought back with a brand new pair of lungs, blade in hand.

So he fights, clawing his way out of the confinement, hands coated crimson. He hoists himself out through the dirt and feels like a baby slipping out of the womb because this must be a new life. There’s no way his flesh and bones and tendons and muscles could mesh together to make him whole again, not after everything.

The sun is too bright and hot and Dean doesn’t know how to stand up, so he lies in the grass like he has all the time in the world, and maybe he does. He shuts his eyes and watches splotches of color dance behind his eyelids. He’s thirsty and sore and confused.

Dean starts to choke after a failed attempt at swallowing, and he coughs hard, but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts because he’s in one piece. _Maybe this is a dream_ , Dean wonders, but all his dreams are filled with knives and revenge and the sound of tearing flesh.

Maybe he aced the test. Beat the system. Or maybe he’s so far gone that this is just some fake reality in the corner of his mind, but it feels so real, _too_ real.

Dean rakes his hand over his face, smearing it with blood. He smells the iron and familiarity washes over him, and his mouth twitches into a weak smile.

**

The windows shatter at the gas station, and some kind of force knocks Dean to the ground. Pieces of glass burrow into Dean’s skin and it almost tickles.

**

Bobby cleans his face of the red and Dean’s sitting on the edge of the couch, body still and hands clasped. He hears Bobby say Sam’s name and if any time passes, Dean doesn’t notice, but suddenly Sam is standing in front of him.

Sam bends down to meet Dean’s glazed eyes and his mouth is moving, but it all sounds like a warped cassette tape, like the Rush one Dad used to have. It wilted away in the Impala one summer, just like the flowers did in the yard at Lawrence, after Dad moved out for a couple days and Mom was too sad to water them.

The memory grows teeth and gnaws at Dean’s brain, threatening to open up cans of worms Dean had buried long ago. It was easier to forget down there, to detach from everything. If he wasn’t a person with memories then maybe nothing mattered.

Sam says something about rest and the concept alone is enough for Dean to bust out laughing, but he stays silent. Dean wonders if his vocal cords are still down there in Alastair’s grasp, and for all he knows, they are.

**

Dean digs his nails into the splinter once he notices it.

His hands are covered in cuts and scrapes and dried blood, but only one single splinter is seared deep into the pad of his ring finger. It proves to be stubborn, but Dean persists, feeling an unbearable need to tear it out. He needs to be clean, something new and completely unrecognizable.

Sam yells that he’s going out. He leaves it at that, vague and hazy, and Dean hears the door click shut before he can even toss out a reply. Dean knows it’s Ruby, knows what Sam is up to – he’s fucked up, but not oblivious. It boils Dean’s blood, but he finds himself grateful. He wants to cut himself open and tear himself into pieces and he can’t let his little brother see.

Dean takes out his box cutter and drives it into his skin without much thought. He cuts all around one side of the splinter and pulls up, and it comes loose. It stings a little, but hardly. Blood runs wild, dripping onto the tile of the shitty motel bathroom, deep red on dirty white.

Alastair isn’t here to dig his hand inside and pry it open further. He isn’t here to sew it back together, or to tell Dean that it’ll all stop if he just picks up the razor. He isn’t here to breathe sweet praises into Dean’s ear, to tell him just how perfect he is at ripping people apart. 

Alastair isn’t here, but neither is Dean, not really.

Dean gets dizzy. He scuffs his boot against the tile, clearing the blood off well enough, and stumbles to the bed. Blood continues to slide down his finger, and Dean feels drowsy from the metallic smell. He drifts off feeling comforted, and maybe that should make him sick, but Dean feels fine.

**

An angel pulled Dean out.

Castiel doesn’t tell Dean much, only his name and his species, and that Dean is on God’s list of people who are granted a Get Out of Jail Free card.

He’s full of shit.

**

Dean stops talking and it takes him back to being a scared little four year old, wide-eyed and fucked out of his mind, still feeling the heat of the fire that turned his mother and home into ash. He can still feel it, when he’s lying in bed and gets too warm under the covers. Dean kicks them off and sometimes swears he can smell smoke.

He’s not four years old anymore, but being silent is so appealing.

Sam tries to talk to Dean, but he knows better than to ask about Hell. Dean knows he wants to, knows it’s eating away at Sam every waking moment, but Sam talks about cases instead. He gives Dean newspapers with potential jobs already circled, as if Dean can’t be trusted to know what’s strange and what isn’t. Sam means well, but it pisses Dean off.

Tonight, Sam asks about Castiel. He tries to start a conversation about angels and Heaven, about what the fuck any of this means. Dean just lies in the bed in some motel in some town and closes his eyes.

Dean’s uncomfortably warm under the covers, but doesn’t smell smoke. He feels chains around his extremities instead, rubbing his skin raw. He’s spread out like a piece of meat, just a warm body to be poked and prodded and turned inside out.

Dean knows when Sam looks over at him because he cuts himself off and sighs softly. “Dean,” Sam says, and it’s so broken and sad and desperate that Dean wants to fly off the bed and pull Sam into his arms because that’s what Dean’s supposed to do. 

Dean stays still and Sam shuts the light off.

**

Alastair’s vessel isn’t familiar, but once his fists collide with Dean’s face and his hand closes around Dean’s throat, everything feels right.

**

“He's dead, Dean. Alastair. Does that make you… feel anything?” Sam asks tentatively, like he’s Dean’s therapist. The tip-toeing around Dean like he’s broken glass is old news, but Dean can’t give a shit at this point.

The hospital bed is uncomfortable, but the silence is worse, so Dean breaks it.

“Killing Yellow Eyes – that felt good. Really good. But it didn’t bring Mom back. It didn’t change anything. There’s ten seconds of satisfaction and then that empty, hollow feeling comes back, so what’s the fuckin’ point?”

Sam’s too caught off guard by Dean speaking to say anything in return. He just stares for a few moments before looking away, and he doesn’t look at Dean again for a long time.

**

There’s no time to dwell on Dean’s issues. There's angels and demons and the fucking Apocalypse breathing down their necks, and there's always going to be monsters like wendigos, hiding in the dark and eating people. Dean doesn’t have time to fix himself. Why bother when he’s a champion at plastering on a game face and hiding behind a wall of lies?

That's why Dean says “I’m good,” one day out of the blue.

Sam almost jumps out of the seat. He looks surprised and then happy for a brief moment before switching to concerned. “Dean, if you-”

“Sam,” Dean says, voice sturdier, and he meets his brother’s eyes for the first time in weeks. “I’m good. Really.”

He’s hesitant, but Sam finally gives in. Dean knows he’s not convinced, but he’s done pressing for now. Sam will just look at Dean in this different and unsettling way, like Dean’s a jigsaw puzzle and all the pieces are disfigured and will obviously not fit together. But Sam will still try because Dean’s his brother and he doesn’t recognize this empty shell sitting beside him.

It’s like the wilted flowers in Lawrence – beautiful things that were once so full of life just fade away, and you can’t touch them because they’ll fall apart right there in your hands.

Sam starts the Impala and sighs quietly, and Dean wonders what’s running through his head, but he turns away. Dean looks out the window and notices a formation of storm clouds as he wonders if the flowers could come back to life again.

**Author's Note:**

> "Those who escape Hell never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that." -Charles Bukowski


End file.
